St Louis Cardinals

Major League Baseball has postponed a four-game series between the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals after 13 members of the Cardinals organization tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week. 

In a statement shared by ESPN's Jeff Passan, the Cardinals said they will stay in Milwaukee: 

Here’s the official postponement of the Cardinals-Tigers series. With the outbreak of 13 cases of COVID-19 in the Cardinals organization, it was inevitable. Between this and the @Ken_Rosenthal report that the Field of Dreams game has been canceled, a rough day for the Cardinals. pic.twitter.com/cgcVqTL0Br

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 3, 2020

St. Louis was originally supposed to play the Milwaukee Brewers before that series was postponed.

The Tigers said they'll continue working out at Comerica Park to prepare for their three-game set with the Pittsburgh Pirates, which begins Friday.

Former MLB player Jerry Hairston Jr. tweeted on Saturday that he spoke to sources who said some members of the Cardinals visited a casino prior to their outbreak. Jon Heyman of MLB Network corroborated the report and said "at least a couple Cardinals did go to a Casino."

Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak commented on the reports.

"I have no factual reason to believe that is true, and I have not seen any proof of that," he said, per Passan. "If they were at a casino, though, that would be disappointing."

Passan reported on July 29 that MLB was strengthening its health and safety protocols after the Miami Marlins experienced the first outbreak in the league. As part of the new rules, players would be encouraged not to leave their hotels while on the road.

The 13 positive tests for the Cardinals will likely lead some to question about whether MLB can continue to carry on with the 2020 season. Opening Day was on July 23 and already three teams (the Cardinals, Marlins and Philadelphia Phillies) have had to postpone at least a week's worth of games.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred reaffirmed his commitment to finishing the season when speaking with ESPN's Karl Ravech on Saturday.

"We are playing," Manfred said. "The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable."

Multiple St. Louis Cardinals players reportedly went to a casino before an outbreak of COVID-19 hit the organization, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

There are four Cardinals players and three staff members who have tested positive for the coronavirus, while updated test results reportedly are "not good" with new positives expected, per Jeff Passan of ESPN. St. Louis was forced to postpone its entire series against the Milwaukee Brewers this past weekend.

Players had initially been discouraged from leaving their team hotels, but now, they are prohibited to leave after MLB tightened its rules, per Heyman. 

Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak later told reporters the report of players going to a casino was "not true, to his knowledge."

The first set of policy changes were made after the Miami Marlins saw much of the team test positive for the coronavirus. Six different teams were out of action Sunday due to postponed games.

Commissioner Rob Manfred has reportedly threatened to shut down the season and has called on players to follow protocols, per Passan, although he has publicly insisted the year will go on.

"We are playing," Manfred said Saturday, per Karl Ravech of ESPN. "The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable."

An MLB investigation reportedly showed the Marlins didn't follow protocols and went out after games, including the hotel bar, per Bleacher Report's Scott Miller. Cardinals players going to the casino would further indicate carelessness amid the pandemic.

"We had someone that was infected and unfortunately it was someone that was able to spread it," Mozeliak told MLB Network on Saturday (h/t Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). "Containing is now our main focus."

St. Louis is currently scheduled to resume its season Tuesday against the Detroit Tigers, but uncertainty remains while the team awaits more COVID-19 test results.

The recent COVID-19 testing results for the St. Louis Cardinals are "not good," according to ESPN's Jeff Passan, after the team already postponed its weekend series with the Milwaukee Brewers.

There were a number of inconclusive results among the Cardinals yesterday, as @dgoold said, and the team’s path forward will be determined by the number of confirmed and new positives. @JonHeyman and @ByRobertMurray were on today's results.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 2, 2020

#Cardinals took rapid tests this morning, and another scheduled round of tests ... but a big key here is the inconclusive results from Saturday. #Cardinals had FOUR of those. Those four (one player, three staff) would be in addition to the four already confirmed. Update coming. https://t.co/G1LIbYbOQK

— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) August 2, 2020

MLB temporarily suspended the Miami Marlins' season after the team experienced a COVID-19 outbreak.

The Cardinals are scheduled to resume play Tuesday on the road against the Detroit Tigers. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold reported Saturday that traveling to Detroit remains the team's plan.

Goold also shared comments from the team's president of baseball operations, John Mozeliak:

"We feel like we have a fairly good idea on isolation and understand and where this has really evolved to. We're very optimistic we can get back on the field. We feel confident by the time we get to Detroit on Monday that we will have control of this. From the league standpoint, from the Cardinals' standpoint, we feel comfortable moving forward."

Given how the situation is evolving, the fate of the four-game set with the Tigers might be in jeopardy.

In the wake of the Marlins' outbreak, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said on MLB Network that it wasn't "in the nightmare category" while defending the league's health and safety protocols.

Commissioner Manfred sits down with Tom Verducci in Studio 21.

Tune in to MLB Tonight after the game for the full interview. pic.twitter.com/WnZx8q5U8q

— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) July 27, 2020

"We built protocols anticipating that we would have positive tests at some point during the season," Manfred said, via ESPN's Jesse Rogers. "The protocols were built to allow us to play through those positives. We believe the protocols are adequate to keep our players safe."

Since then, the Cardinals and Brewers postponed their series, while the Philadelphia Phillies postponed their weekend games against the Toronto Blue Jays after a coach and clubhouse official tested positive.

Manfred's stance remained the same Saturday.

"We are playing," he said to ESPN's Karl Ravech. "The players need to be better, but I am not a quitter in general and there is no reason to quit now. We have had to be fluid, but it is manageable."

However, Passan reported that Manfred conceded privately to MLB Players Association Executive Director Tony Clark that the 2020 season could end abruptly "if the sport doesn't do a better job of managing the coronavirus."

The St. Louis Cardinals are considering pausing their season after six players and staff tested positive for COVID-19, per Derrick S. Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Three unidentified players and three staff members, all of whom are part of the Cardinals' 58-person traveling party, have tested positive, and the team's four-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers from Friday through Sunday has been canceled.

The Cards' Monday game against the Detroit Tigers has also been postponed, meaning the next contest on the slate is a Tuesday road matchup with Detroit.

St. Louis started its season 3-2 before traveling to Milwaukee to face the Brewers. Initially, only the Cards' Friday game was postponed after testing conducted Wednesday before the team's road game against the Minnesota Twins revealed two positive player tests.

The Cards traveled to Milwaukee before hearing about the results, which were released Friday, and the team has been in self-isolation in its hotel since. However, the rest of St. Louis' series was canceled after testing results released Saturday revealed confirmed cases for three staff members and another player.

The Cards aren't the only team that has been forced to postpone games.

The Miami Marlins, who had 18 players test positive for COVID-19, have not played since last Sunday. The Philadelphia Phillies, who played the Marlins to open the season, have also been sidelined this entire week.

Miami will return to the diamond Tuesday, however, with a game against the Baltimore Orioles, per R.J. Anderson of CBS Sports. The Phils will face the New York Yankees on Monday.

The MLB season is forging onward despite the positive tests, but the entire campaign would appear to be on the brink, with two teams suffering outbreaks before the season was two weeks old.

Per ESPN's Jeff Passan on Friday: "Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred told MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday that if the sport doesn't do a better job of managing the coronavirus, it could shut down for the season, sources familiar with the conversation told ESPN."

MLB doesn't appear to be at that point, but the risk is still prevalent as the pandemic continues its spread throughout the United States. Per the World Health Organization, there have been over 4.45 million confirmed cases in the U.S. alone, with 67,823 confirmed Saturday.

Saturday night's game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park was postponed after positive COVID-19 test results involving the Cardinals.

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com shared confirmation of the postponement from the league after Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported the news. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic provided details:

Not all who tested positive with the Cardinals are players, source says. Combination of staff and players. https://t.co/hpHd7HMJHI

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 1, 2020

Later, MLB announced the rest of the series would be postponed, per Jayson Stark of The Athletic. 

Friday's game was also postponed after the Cards' initial positive tests. Most of the positives are from staffers, per The Athletic's Mark Saxon.

pic.twitter.com/j3zl42vhlL

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) July 31, 2020

St. Louis president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said the parties involved have been in communication about how to move forward.

"Having prompt reaction by everybody involved—commissioner's office, Brewers, Cardinals—I think it did prioritize safety, and that's important," Mozeliak told reporters Friday.

For the second straight day, Brewers pitcher Brett Anderson noted he found out the game was postponed via the media rather than the team or league:

Good to know https://t.co/xhvavU0tBD

— Brett Anderson (@_BAnderson30_) July 31, 2020

Once again good to know https://t.co/AubiUzm3GW

— Brett Anderson (@_BAnderson30_) August 1, 2020

In addition, Milwaukee center fielder Lorenzo Cain informed the club he's opting out of the remainder of the campaign:

pic.twitter.com/Tl2erkBHdL

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) August 1, 2020

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred spoke with MLB Players Association executive director Tony Clark on Friday to alert the union the 2020 season could be in jeopardy if the positive cases aren't contained amid the coronavirus pandemic, per Passan.

Most notably, the Miami Marlins have suffered a COVID-19 outbreak that included 21 positive tests as of Friday, according to ESPN.

The Marlins and the Philadelphia Phillies, their opponent in last weekend's season-opening series, haven't played since that head-to-head matchup.

It's created a situation wherein Miami and Philadelphia have played only three games, while other teams have finished as many as eight. Making up the games could prove difficult within a 60-game schedule that was already condensed because of the pandemic.

Three games have now been postponed Saturday—Cardinals at Brewers, Washington Nationals at Marlins and Phillies at Toronto Blue Jays—while 12 games remain scheduled.

Friday afternoon's game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park has been postponed because of positive COVID-19 test results.

pic.twitter.com/j3zl42vhlL

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) July 31, 2020

Major League Baseball announced that the game would be rescheduled as part of a traditional doubleheader on Sunday. The two teams remain scheduled to play Saturday's game.

The Cardinals are going to remain at the team hotel as part of self-isolation efforts, per Derrick S. Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

So, per source, the #Cardinals for now have been told that, if the rest of the team tests negative (and I haven’t yet been told how many positives they had), the series with the Brewers will start on Saturday.

— Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) July 31, 2020

A "prominent" Cardinals player told Mark Saxon of The Athletic that he wants to play on Saturday: "Can't let this all crumble."

It's the third game from Friday's schedule that's been postponed because of the coronavirus. Neither the Miami Marlins, who were set to face the Washington Nationals, nor the Philadelphia Phillies, who were going to take on the Toronto Blue Jays, have played since their head-to-head series last weekend.

The Marlins have suffered a COVID-19 outbreak that included 19 positive tests—17 by players and two by coaches—as of Thursday, according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.

Meanwhile, the Phillies announced Thursday they've canceled all activities at Citizens Bank Park until further notice after two staff members tested positive.

Commissioner Rob Manfred appeared on the MLB Network on Monday to discuss the evolving situation. He noted the league's protocols "allow us to continue to play through those positives" but admitted there may come a time where one club or MLB as a whole may need to shut down:

"I think that a team losing a number of players that rendered it completely non-competitive would be an issue that we would have to address and have to think about making a change. Whether that was shutting down a part of the season, the whole season, that depends on the circumstances. Same thing with respect to league-wide; you get to a certain point league-wide where it does become a health threat and we certainly would shut down at that point."

The season had already been shortened to 60 games because of the late start, and the schedule was condensed in an attempt to fit as many contests as possible into the regular season, but trying to make up all the lost games could prove difficult.

Some teams have already completed seven games, while the Phillies and Marlins have played only three.

Steve Gardner of USA Today reported Thursday the league is preparing to implement seven-inning doubleheaders to ease the burden on teams falling behind.

There are 12 games still scheduled for Friday.

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Bleacher Report's David Gardner interviews athletes and other sports figures for the podcast How to Survive Without Sports.

The St. Louis Cardinals announced Tuesday that starting pitcher Miles Mikolas would undergo season-ending right elbow tendon surgery, per Mark Saxon of The Athletic:

If there’s good news to this, it’s that the Monday MRI on Mikolas’s elbow showed an intact UCL (Tommy John ligament), which means Mikolas could be healthy for next year. It’s four months of rehab vs. one year if it were a torn UCL. https://t.co/00uZbUQHXJ

— Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) July 28, 2020

Daniel Ponce de Leon is expected to take Mikolas' place in the rotation for the time being, according to Saxon.  

The Cardinals also called up pitcher Jacob Woodford. And there is the possibility that Kwang Hyun Kim could get a crack at the rotation after starting the season in the bullpen. 

Could be. Hard to say. Spin zone is in motion. Questions about Mikolas velocity dip were brushed off, and now this, with team confirming Ponce was being prepped for start in case Mikolas injury confirmed. A six-man rotation could have helped keep all 6 on starter's sched. https://t.co/lhhIAeXO2w

— Ben Frederickson (@Ben_Fred) July 28, 2020

Mikolas had dealt with arm issues in spring training but Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the pitcher had been "reassured that rest and non-surgical treatment would promote healing. The game's stoppage due to the coronavirus pandemic bought him addition time to recover and then go through a throwing program that had him ready for 'Summer Camp.'"

But Mikolas had velocity issues during his exhibition appearance and ultimately his arm issues will require surgery to correct.

The 31-year-old started 32 games for the Cardinals in 2019, going 9-14 with a 4.16 ERA, 1.22 WHIP and 144 strikeouts in 184 innings. It was a slightly disappointing campaign after his excellent 2018 campaign saw him register a 2.83 ERA and 1.07 WHIP in 200.2 innings. 

Still, he was expected to be an important part of the team's 2020 rotation. That will be put on hold until the 2021 season. 

With increasing regularity in recent years, Jack Flaherty has been on message. From the first stare at himself in the mirror each morning to the first glance out the window at the rest of the world, his missives are delivered—both to himself and to others—with focus, passion and thought.

They begin with himself. His workday. How he should fill his time smartly. Efficiently. New and innovative ideas? Bring them on. Wasted time is the enemy. He moves forward from there.

He considers things he sees on the field and things he sees in life. As a biracial pitcher who identifies as Black and was adopted by a single white mother when he was three weeks old, he holds a rare point of view shaped by his background and upbringing.

And emerging from an historic run in the second half of last summer—7-2 with an 0.91 ERA over his final 15 starts—his reach both on the field and off is expanding.

Jack Flaherty has something to say and brings the game to back it up, which positions him squarely on the launching pad as baseball's next great ace and one of its most important voices.

"There's times to do certain things, and there's times not to," he says.

One of those times came in the unspeakably raw hours after George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis. Sickened, like so many others, Flaherty posted a passionate and nuanced note on Twitter that both castigated and defended the police, touched on racial injustices and pleaded with his fellow citizens to "educate yourself, to have a better understanding. Have tough conversations with those closest to you, help change the system." And he hasn't stopped since.

I CANT BREATHE pic.twitter.com/rfwtVFvTpN

— Jack Flaherty (@jflare_) June 1, 2020

He is 24, still learning and still searching, working hard to effect change both from within and without.

"He's one of the most diligent, hard workers I've ever seen," says Chicago White Sox starter Lucas Giolito, longtime friend and teammate of Flaherty's at Los Angeles' Harvard-Westlake School. "He strives for perfection, big-time. He's not just content with, 'That was good, that was OK.'

"It's like, 'This needs to be perfect.' And he'll continue to work at it."

Sometimes this spirit collides with the messiness that is the real world. Like shortly after his Cardinals debut, when he called out a teammate or two for giving maybe 80 percent instead of 100 on a given play, veterans who were pacing themselves for the 162-game grind that Flaherty himself had yet to endure. There were times when veterans like Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina cornered him in the dugout and told him to cool it, essentially explaining: You have to wait your turn to be that vocal player.

At 21 or 24 or, presumably, when he's 34, Flaherty never will understand things like taking it easy, even for one play in one game during a six-month season. It is not how he is wired. Given that he finished fourth in National League Cy Young voting in his first full MLB season last summer, becoming only the third pitcher in history younger than 24 to produce at least 230 strikeouts (231) while surrendering 55 or fewer walks (55) and fashioning an ERA of 2.75 or better (2.75), so far his way is working pretty well.

"I never like seeing him on the mound against us," Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts says. "But whenever he's pitching, I'm tuning in."

While he may have ruffled a few feathers along the way, already it's impressive how many Cardinals are following the lead of one of the youngest players in their clubhouse.

Third-year manager Mike Shildt noticed this while talking with various players over the winter. Guys told him they learned "a lot" from Flaherty coming up through the Cardinals' minor league system.

"And these are guys older than Jack who learned from Jack in real time who said, 'He was a good example for me,'" Shildt says.

"So that's impressive in itself."

---

On a Zoom interview a few days before he returns to St. Louis to resume spring training, Flaherty acknowledges to B/R that, indeed, it feels odd that others come to him for advice while he's still earning his stripes.

"It surprises me," he admits. "Guys want to ask me questions. [I tell them] 'this is what it is, I don't know if it's right, I don't know if it's wrong, but this is what I've got for you.'

"I'm going to answer with what I think. Whether it's right or wrong, and if it helps somebody, it helps somebody. If you're on my team and on our side, if you are going to ask me a question, I'm going to give you an honest answer."

Authenticity. His agent, Ryan Hamill, has known him since he was 14 and has experienced it from day one.

"It took Jack a good two or three years to open up to me," says Hamill, 41, a former catcher in the Cardinals organization. "Jack is very aware and very cognizant of his personal relationships. He wants to make sure people in his corner are actually in his corner, so it takes him a long time to open up."

The two of them have what Hamill calls "very deep" conversations that frequently move into areas far beyond baseball. Social issues. World issues. Often they are in agreement, but not always.

"If you ask Jack a question, he's going to take his time to respond," Hamill says. "Sometimes I'll ask Jack a question and I'll think he's hung up the phone. There will be 10 or 20 seconds before he starts answering.

"In today's world, when most people talk before they think, Jack thinks before he talks."

That became evident to the Cardinals going back to Flaherty's September call-up in 2017, when he made six appearances—five starts—in that season's waning weeks. Before his final start of the season, he asked Wainwright for some time.

"So after the last game of the year, we sat down in the clubhouse and just talked for two hours," Flaherty says. "I asked him everything I could. He sat there and answered all of my questions and shared."

Flaherty took notes, literally. He wrote down every nugget of insight Wainwright offered. The session lasted until, finally, the clubhouse attendants said it was time to close up shop and go home.

Flaherty also frequently tried to gain some snippets of wisdom from another former Cardinals ace, Chris Carpenter, who retired in 2013. And over the past few years, he's become close with Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, to whom he first reached out a couple of offseasons ago.

"Great dude, he's been really helpful," Flaherty says. "Just questions like, how'd you do it? What went into it? How'd you throw 300 innings every year? How did you throw nine innings every time? What went through your head?

"Anything you could think of asking him, I've tried to ask. And I've pretty much gotten an answer about everything."

These are heady names and marquee talents.

Yet, ask Flaherty who inspires him, and this is one question for which there is no hesitation.

"My mom," he says. "That's a pretty easy one.

"Seeing her work ethic and the sacrifices she's made, the opportunities she's presented me with. There's no better reason to get out of bed, go through two-a-day workouts, go put in the work and compete every single day."

---

Eileen Flaherty is the senior director of corporate finance at NBCUniversal, mother to Jack and Grady (four-and-a-half years younger than his big brother) and has made things go pretty much from Jack's earliest memories.

"I don't think I've met a mother more organized about A, B, C, D, E, F and G and getting them all done in a day," Hamill says.

Through his younger-self eyes, Jack can still see her hard at work in the car as she waited for him to complete another practice, finish another lesson, throw another bullpen.

What he sees vividly through today's lens are the sacrifices and decisions she made throughout the years that helped give him and Grady, now a double major at Gonzaga University (Eileen's alma mater), every chance at success.

"It's impossible to put into words how much she means to me, and how much she's done for me," Flaherty says. "Impossible to put into words. She's just a special human being."

The three of them—Eileen, Jack and Grady—have been tight since the beginning. Shortly after Grady was born, Eileen had the boys in the child-care center on the Universal Studios lot in Burbank, California, where she worked, and Jack would ask his teachers if he could go see his little brother. So they'd call Grady's room to tell them Jack was on his way, and the future ace would toddle on down the hall.

"And then they'd tell me all the other babies in the room would get so excited because he was a big kid coming to visit," Eileen says. "I guess it was pretty cute."

Growing up in this setting, Eileen believes, is part of the reason Jack matured early. She will tell you that being a single, working mom with two children is in no way unique, that many others are similar to them. And often in those situations, the older child embraces a caretaker role.

"It wasn't necessarily intentional," Eileen says. "It really was just a way to get out of the house in the morning. It was me trying to grab everything and saying to Jack, 'Can you make sure Grady has all of his stuff?' When Jack went to high school, we kind of laughed about it because Grady would literally just walk out of the house in the morning because Jack would have Grady's backpack, lunch, homework."

With a full-time job to contend with, Eileen needed her boys to help themselves quickly.

"I couldn't be everywhere at the same time, so they also were responsible for communicating to their teachers if there was a grade they didn't agree with or an assignment they didn't understand," Eileen says. "They were responsible for having that conversation with teachers and coaches. Maybe some of the maturity comes from that as well."

Always, there were actions and examples. Even today, Eileen is in the middle of a master's program at Gonzaga with a focus on servant leadership.

"So the role of that type of leadership is others are put first," she says. "You empower others, value others, raise them up."

Listen to Jack talk about the game, and these values echo. When he talks about his future, it isn't in terms of building on that sensational second half from last year, when he fashioned the third-lowest ERA in history following the All-Star break after the Cubs' Jake Arrieta (0.75, 2015) and Atlanta's Greg Maddux (0.87, 1994), or projecting future Cy Young trophies onto his mantle.

"If you're helping the team win, you're doing something right and you're bringing other guys along with you," he says. "Whatever that looks like. Some guys do it differently, but if you're bringing those guys along with you … sometimes it's leading by example, sometimes it's your voice."

---

Sometimes you have to learn things the hard way. Sometimes you have to experience pain before you can grow. Flaherty may be young, but he's endured, too. Following his worst season as a pro, a Class-A clunker in 2016 when he was 20, Flaherty returned home for, as he calls them, a couple of "sitdown conversations."

"I wouldn't say that I didn't work hard [then], but compared to now, I didn't do anything," says Flaherty, who had gone 5-9 with a 3.56 ERA at Palm Beach that summer. "They were honest conversations with people in my life about going forward."

One talk was with Eileen, who told her son, "Basically, 'Dude, you've got to get it together, otherwise you're going to be yesterday's news.'

"It was the first time he had truly struggled. Because he was so blessed with athletic talent and academic knowledge—he always had great grades—I don't think he knew how to struggle and how to overcome it."

So he went back to the basics: back to his high school trainer, his high school pitching coach, back to what worked for him in the first place when he played for his high school coach, Matt LaCour.

The next spring, just after the Cardinals optioned him to Double-A Springfield, they tabbed him to start in a scrimmage against the big club before breaking camp in Florida.

"He dominated for five innings," St. Louis teammate Dakota Hudson says. "After that, I was like, 'OK, what's going on here?' Ten starts later he was in Triple-A, and [15] starts after that he was in the big leagues. He's always held on to that moment—at least, for me, that's where I saw the initial change."

It wasn't long before Flaherty faced a more dire crisis.

On July 2, 2019, well into his first full season in the Cardinals rotation, Flaherty took the ball in Seattle. But the Mariners lineup likely wasn't foremost in his mind. A little more than 24 hours earlier, his close friend, Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, had been found dead in a hotel room after ingesting a lethal combination of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone.

The Mariners cuffed Flaherty for seven hits and four runs over 4.2 innings, raising his ERA to 4.90 and lowering his spirits even more.

Eileen was in T-Mobile Park that day with her old Gonzaga roommates, her own grief overflowing both for the Skaggs family and for her son working all alone on the mound.

As more Mariners reached base, the mother in her wanted to scream at Shildt and pitching coach Mike Maddux for not rescuing her son. But she knew they were doing the right thing by allowing him to work through his own grief and anger.

"So much credit goes to those men," she says.

After the game, Eileen and Jack made a breakfast date for the next morning. And over eggs, sausage, hash browns and toast, drizzled with Cholula sauce (Jack), mom unloaded on her son something she had been holding in since watching the Cubs knock him around in Wrigley Field a month earlier.

"I was watching at home, and it was maybe the seventh or eighth pitch of the game, and I was like, 'Oh my God, this is going to be a dumpster fire,'" Eileen says of Jack's start in Wrigley last June 8, in which he surrendered five hits, four runs and three walks in just 3.2 innings. "They did a close-up of his face, and I could tell in his eyes, this is going to be bad. So I got up and started cleaning the house.

"I knew something was going on in his life mentally, otherwise where he was, [it] was just not where he could be. That game and those eyes at that moment told me everything."

Now, at a table in that Seattle diner, Eileen reached back a month and whistled a fastball of her own right past her son.

"The gist of it was, 'I just want to share with you that I was very angry with you over that game in Chicago,'" she says, emotions from that time still sensitive enough to the point where the phone goes silent for several seconds and she asks for a moment.

Jack had no idea.

"I shared with him that I was really angry because you have allowed someone or something to lessen your self-confidence and to lessen your self-esteem," Eileen continues. "I said, 'How dare you? How dare you!

"'There are so few things in life that we have control over. You allowed that into your mind. Only you can make that change.'"

So many voices are in my head, Jack told her. So many people with so much advice. Fine, Eileen told him. Talk to as many people as you want. But nothing is going to get better until you will it yourself. Only you can make change, nobody else.

Five days later, he was not just a different pitcher, but a different man on the mound in San Francisco. He gave up two hits in seven innings in a 1-0 loss. Afterward, Eileen hugged Shildt and told him that only the two of them and Maddux knew what that afternoon both took and meant.

---

Flaherty came to pitching late. At Harvard-Westlake, he started out playing shortstop and third base. As a sophomore, he was the third starter on the team behind seniors (and future major leaguers) Max Fried and Giolito and was only summoned to pitch more when Giolito injured his elbow early in the year.

He had committed to the University of North Carolina as an infielder, but when the Cardinals took him in the first round as the 34th overall pick of the 2014 draft, the Tar Heels had to go to plan B. So, too, did the Chicago Cubs, who owned the 45th overall pick and had struck a predraft deal with Hamill before the Cardinals swooped in, according to the agent.

Now, Flaherty has the makings of someone who could step into the cleats of a Wainwright or a Carpenter. In 66 career starts when he receives a minimum of two runs of support, Flaherty is 18-7. When the Cards scratch out three or more, he's 14-1.

"I don't know what's better, the stuff or the compete," Roberts, the Dodgers manager, says. "He's special. When you're talking about elite No. 1s, there's only a handful of those guys, in my opinion, and he's right there with them."

Yet two springs running, Flaherty has rejected St. Louis' contract offers—as is his right under current labor agreement—and the Cardinals have wound up renewing him at their numbers, as is their right. He will earn a pro-rated portion of $604,500 for 2020 after making $562,100 last year. That's barely above the MLB minimum, which this year is $563,500, an increase from $555,000 last year.

This is another message.

"In Jack's mind, this isn't against the Cardinals, it's against the system," Hamill says. "You look at the NFL, the NBA, they pay their rookies better—be it in the draft or allowing players to get to free agency quicker.

"Essentially, it's five years in the minors in baseball making no money, going through the process of [the club] having three options, then the process of three years to get to arbitration. Jack and I feel the Cardinals' system of pay is fair across the board, but the system isn't. His ability to renew is asserting his beliefs as a player.

"When Jack feels a certain way, he's going to express his thoughts. This is his way to do it. He didn't bang on the Cardinals. He simply allowed his action to speak for itself." Flaherty will be eligible for arbitration for the first time after this season and could hit free agency after the 2023 season.

Be it systemic change in baseball or in society, Flaherty keeps his eyes wide open—and, at least, this summer while baseball was on hiatus, his social media accounts sharpened, from emphasizing Cincinnati pitcher Amir Garrett's plea to, as Flaherty tweeted, "change the world, there's bigger things than baseball"…

change the world
there’s bigger things than baseball https://t.co/jySiIRCtqO

— Jack Flaherty (@jflare_) June 30, 2020

…to retweeting the NBA's plan to allow players to use phrases that promote social justice causes on their jerseys.

The NBA and NBPA are planning to let players change the last name on their jerseys to a statement on social justice, per @ShamsCharania pic.twitter.com/yHJarmEfcP

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 28, 2020

"From a world standpoint, there's a lot going on," Flaherty says. "You've seen it in basketball, with [the Lakers'] Avery Bradley sitting out [the NBA restart], in the WNBA with people like [the Washington Mystics'] Natasha Cloud sitting out, because there's bigger issues going on in the world.

"So everything coming back is not to distract from what's going on but, hopefully, we can use it as a way to further go forward with this movement that is happening and further bring light to everything that's going on in the world and to everything that's been going on for hundreds of years."

powerful ✊🏽 https://t.co/4ckSWYYCAn

— Jack Flaherty (@jflare_) June 22, 2020

We're all products of our environment, and for Flaherty, there have been many sources of inspiration. Eileen, his volunteer work in the Catholic schools he attended, a coach he met at a YMCA basketball program named Brenton Earley with whom he still talks.

"Then you come into a time when you're a young adult and you meet someone like Adam Wainwright, who is an incredible human being, and it starts to mold you," Eileen says.

And there are others.

"What Jack has said to me privately when he's deleted tweets [that he's regretted] is that, 'I want to be a model like Kobe Bryant,'" Hamill says. "Kobe Bryant wasn't on social media pounding his chest. Jack really looked up to Kobe, and he's taken that reflection of Kobe and said, 'That's who I want to emulate.'

"He'll ask me something, and I'll say: 'Be yourself, but understand there are repercussions. Think about three, four, five steps down the road. Think of yourself as a 30-year-old and ask if it's something you as a 24-year-old would have been proud of.'"

Like those early days in the St. Louis dugout, the path isn't always necessarily smooth. Passion and belief can come packaged with turbulence.

"But he is focused," Hamill says. "I've never seen someone work the way he has, with that level of intensity."

Question is, where to next? The march—on the field and off—continues.

"You can talk about the social injustice or oppression that's been going on for hundreds of years," Flaherty says. "People finally getting out and protests continuing. It's no time to stop. It's not like, 'Hey, we've done it for a few weeks, everything's good, we can chalk it up as a win.' No.

"It doesn't end because we go back and play baseball, basketball and, hopefully, eventually, football," he says. "No, it doesn't end with that.

"It ends when changes are made."

        

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow Scott on Twitter and talk baseball.

The St. Louis Cardinals announced Monday that relief pitcher Jordan Hicks is opting out of the 2020 MLB season. 

Hicks issued a statement about his decision:

2020 Season❗️❗️❗️ pic.twitter.com/zxLiq7d7Gc

— Jordan Hicks (@Jhicks007) July 13, 2020

The Athletic's Mark Saxon provided some context:

For those who didn’t know, Jordan Hicks is a Type 1 diabetic. His rehab was slowed initially by the disease, which affects blood flow and, thus, recovery. It’s on the list of pre-existing conditions, so he qualifies to be paid in ‘20. https://t.co/hu1qXZLF3U

— Mark Saxon (@markasaxon) July 13, 2020

Joel Sherman of the New York Post noted the 12 other players who have opted out for the upcoming season amid the COVID-19 pandemic:

The 13 who have so far decided not to play this year:
Welington Castillo
Ian Desmond
Felix Hernandez
Jordan Hicks
MIchael Kopech
Mike Leake
Nick Markakis
Hector Noesi
Buster Posey
Joe Ross
Tyson Ross
David Price
Ryan Zimmerman

— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) July 13, 2020

Hicks made 29 appearances for the Cardinals in 2019, posting a 3.14 ERA and striking out 31 batters in 28.2 innings.

He almost immediately turned heads in the majors. According to Brooks Baseball, his fastball and sinker have averaged more than 100 mph through his first two seasons. The movement on his slider his something to behold as well.

This pitch by Jordan Hicks! 😱 pic.twitter.com/Crcnng4TWf

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) April 27, 2019

The 23-year-old right-hander was making progress in 2019, bringing his walks per nine innings down from 5.2 to 3.5, according to Baseball Reference. His season ended last June, however, when he underwent Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL in his right elbow.

Hicks' recovery timeline was initially set at 12 to 15 months. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Derrick Goold reported in May that Hicks' diabetes had slowed his rehab but that he'd likely be healthy enough to return to the mound this year.

Carlos Martinez, the Cardinals' leader in saves (24) is listed as a starting pitcher on the team's official site. St. Louis already lost John Brebbia to Tommy John surgery. Giovanny Gallegos has also experienced issues arriving for the team's summer training preparations.

Hicks' withdrawal adds more question marks to a bullpen that was already in a state of flux.

St. Louis Cardinals reliever Andrew Miller remains skeptical that there will be a Major League Baseball season in 2020. 

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Miller said he thinks "there's still some doubt that we're going to have a season now."

There have been reservations from multiple players about whether or not this season will happen. 

San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey told The Athletic's Andrew Baggarly he is still unsure about playing the full schedule:

"I want to see how things progress here over the next couple weeks. It would be a little bit maybe naive or silly not to gauge what's going on around you, and not only around here but paying attention to what's happening in different parts of the country. It's obviously unprecedented times right now. Most definitely, I've thought about it and talked with my wife about it quite a bit."

MLB will reportedly open the 2020 season on July 23 with the New York Yankees vs. the Washington Nationals and San Francisco Giants vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers, per USA Today's Bob Nightengale. 

The remaining 26 teams will play their first game the following day, with Nightengale noting the full schedule will be released Monday. 

Players arrived in their team's city this weekend for the start of summer camp.

MLB and the MLB Players Association announced Friday that the first round of COVID-19 tests included 38 positives (31 players, seven staff members), with 19 different teams having at least one positive test. 

Miller, who is entering his second season with the Cardinals, serves as a player representative on the MLBPA's executive board.